PART ONE - WHAT INFLAMMATION IS

“Nurturing yourself is not selfish–it’s essential to your survival and your well-being”. Renee Peterson Trudeau

HOW INFLAMMATION WORKS

When you’re experiencing symptoms like inflamed skin, muscle stiffness, or fever, it might feel like your body’s working against you. In actuality, though, it’s trying to help. When your body identifies a threat to its cells, whether it’s caused by an injury, bacteria, or virus, it increases blood flow and sends antibodies, proteins, and white blood cells to protect the area, remove damaged tissue, and contain the potential spread of any bodily intruders. This is acute inflammation in action, and while the accompanying swelling, bruising, redness, and soreness might make you a little uncomfortable, generally speaking it means things are working as they should.

It’s when inflammation becomes chronic that things get complicated. Chronic inflammation occurs when the body perceives itself to be under attack (whether real or imagined) for a prolonged period of time, and expends energy trying to battle these invaders, causing the body to stay on high alert for weeks, months, or even years. The constant influx of white blood cells and other misguided efforts to help can end up damaging healthy tissues and organs and wreaking all kinds of long-term havoc. Prolonged inflammatory response has been linked to a wide range of conditions including cancer, diabetes, arthritis, asthma, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Some inflammation is good. Too much is often bad, The goal is to recognize when inflammation is simply doing its job, and when it can potentially cause problems.” In this section we’re going to explore some of the many factors that can make your body feel like it’s under attack and how you can bring back a state of healthy balance.